Singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada is no rising star. She's actually been on the Japanese music scene since the early 1990s -- she got her start as U3, bounced around record labels, recorded in English and Japanese, and in 1999, when she released her first official debut album, First Love, it became Japan's biggest-selling album in history and reached Mariah/ Britney levels of chart success.

Also, like Mariah and Britney, Utada also became a Major Star in Japan and one of the biggest-selling Asian artists of all time. But despite her monster levels of fame in Japan, her Incredible Hulk-like smashing of the Japanese charts, and her residencies in the U.S., and despite the depth and reach of her music and skills (she's also a producer and arranger), outside of Japan Utada's still primarily known just by J-pop and J-music aficionados.

MTV News asked it back in 2004, and I'm asking it yet again: Nine albums into her storied career, will her latest English-language album, This Is the One, finally be the one that makes her a star outside of Japan?